Causes of emulsion formation during solvent extraction of fermentation broths and its reduction by surfactants
✍ Scribed by Sandra Lennie; Peter J. Hailing; George Bell
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1990
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 208 KB
- Volume
- 35
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0006-3592
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✦ Synopsis
Extraction with water-immiscible solvents is widely used to recover products from fermentation broths, including penicillin and many other antibiotics, though there is little published work on this operation. Formation of rather stable emulsions is often a problem during the process, leading to significant increases in costs. Centrifugal extractors are normally employed instead of simpler mixer/ settlers, partly to help in breaking emulsions; despite this, emulsion formation limits extractor throughput and may cause losses of product or solvent (e.g., ref. 1). It is generally believed that the main emulsion stabilizers in fermentation broths are proteins (e.g., ref. l), though we are not aware of any published experimental tests of this view. Protein stabilization of unwanted emulsions may also be important in other areas of the process industries, such as solvent extraction from agricultural raw materials. We now report an initial study of the factors in a fermentation broth that cause emulsification, and of a possible means of reducing the problem.